Marc Myers writes daily on jazz legends and legendary jazz recordings

January 26, 2013

Weekend Wax Bits

Only a week to go: Do you have your tickets? I will be appearing at 92Y/Tribeca New York on Monday, February 4 at noon. In one hour, I will take you through the unlikely events that caused post-war jazz styles to change, complete with my favorite tracks and big-screen photographs from the era. A multimedia presentation plus a Q&A and a book signing. You won't want to miss this. Come down and support JazzWax and 92Y—both great institutions. Go here.

Why Jazz Happened review. Robert Fulford, Canada's esteemed arts columnist for the National Post, devoted a
post to my book last week and its mission to look at why exactly jazz styles changed so often between World War II and Watergate. To read Robert's column, go here.

Why Jazz Happened interview. On Friday, Eric Banister of Music Tomes posted a superb e-interview he conducted with me on my book and my views on jazz. To read, go here.

Joe Albany. New England Public Radio blogger and radio host Tom Reney did it again. Here's his super post last week on pianist Joe Albany.

Jazz at Lincoln Center's streaming. JazzWax reader Jim Ardoin wrote to rave about Jazz at Lincoln Center's (JALC) live web streams. Jim noted that if you follow J@LC on Twitter, JALC provides a link for the live stream about an hour before a concert starts. Or you can go to the site (go here) and watch.

As Jim noted: "They had Wynton Marsalis's Louis Armstrong Hot 5s & 7s tributes streamed for both sets every night for five nights. This past weekend, they streamed the cool jazz tributes on Friday night, and Aaron Diehl's tribute to John Lewis on Saturday."

Jim closed by noting that SFJAZZ will soon be streaming concerts as well (go here).

Roy Eldridge radio. WKCR is presenting its annual Roy Eldridge Birthday Broadcast, starting on Wednesday, January 30, and airing for 24 hours. To listen on your computer to Little Jazz [pictured above] from anywhere in the world, go here.

Been to the Mosaic Records site lately? There's a lot going on. In addition to the fabulous boxed sets, Mosaic is now prosaic—the team is actively blogging, Tweeting and ramping up the e-jazz dialogue. Dig Mosaic's Daily Jazz Gazettehere. Or follow on Twitter @MosaicRecords.

Lalo Schifrin. Bret Primack, who is working on a documentary about trumpeter Pauly Cohen, sent along a terrific clip of composer-arranger Lalo Schifrin conducting the BBC Big Band in 2006. The clip features an entire performance of Street Lights, Blues for Basie, Lalo's Latin Jazz Suite and Mission Impossible. For my recent interview with Lalo, go here. Here's the concert...

Radio gold. JazzWax reader John Bailey hipped me to online station PureJazzRadio that's run by Rich Keith, a guy with great taste who knows his stuff. Go here and let it rip.

Joe Alterman, a jazz pianist with tremendous taste and touch, whom I've dug since he first came up several years ago, will be headlining for the first time at the Blue Note in New York this Monday, January 28, at 8 and 10:30 p.m. He will be joined by James Cammack on bass and Justin Chesarek on drums. Cammack, of course, has been a mainstay with Ahmad Jamal, and Chesarek is up from Atlanta. Here's the same trio with tenor saxophonist Houston Person. Any way you cut it, Joe's becoming a monster...

Hal Blaine and Brian Wilson, pictured below, horsing around with a tomato...

Hal writes: "Where do they find this stuff? It had to be the early 1960's. What great memories I should have—but I have none." LOL.

CD discovery of the week. One of the finest and most fascinating jazz orchestral albums to cross my desk this year is the Asuka Kakitani Jazz Orchestra's Bloom (Nineteen-Eight). Kakitani is a composer-arranger-
conductor who assembled an 18-piece band in 2006 to perform her works. And she's a big deal: Kakitani received a prestigious Manny Albam Commission to compose a new
work for large jazz ensemble, which was premiered at the 2007 BMI annual
showcase concert in New York. On this album, her compositions sigh, dream, rise, slip quietly into shifting moods and build toward fragrant crescendos. Kakitani and her ideas and pen are the real deal, not to mention the tremendous orchestra and vocalist Sara Serpa, who colorizes the instrumental tones.

Oddball album cover of the week.

A few months back I promised you more covers from this early Columbia LP series of mood albums. This one's with Xavier Cugat. Hard to imagine our model is relaxed with some guy's menacing arm preventing her from leaving.

About

Marc Myers writes on music and the arts for The Wall Street Journal. He is author of "Why Jazz Happened" (Univ. of California Press). Founded in 2007, JazzWax is a Jazz Journalists Association's "Blog of the Year" winner.